Wading

It was never this humid out there,
but the sun that summer burned
through the cool air at the water's edge,
turning my bare shoulders to blisters
as we swam in the creek-shallow
Williamette River in our panties,
too itching with heat to have shame.

Fishermen fired their tufted flies
into the icy-cold current right upstream,
but we stretched out naked in the grass,
baking our winter-weary hides to crimson
from creamy pale pink while drying
our underpants, before biking into town
again, patting them slick, wet into broken
branches along our section of the shore.

On Being Childless

It's no longer too early
in the marriage for talk
of a baby, so older women
question us, as if appropriate,
even expected.
I want to be tragically infertile,
so I could claim we continue
to try for just one baby:
that elusive, true badge
of womanhood; God dangling
a fat, pink carrot just out of reach.
Women, clucking tongues,
shaking heads, whispering,

The poor girl, her mother says
she may never be able to conceive.

-- Amy L. Sargent